Posts Tagged ‘suffering’

I have watched the movie “G.I. Jane” (1997) more than twice. I caught it either on HBO or Star Movies.

In that movie, Command Master Chief John James Urgayle (played by Viggo Mortensen) teases his wards of US Navy SEALS into quitting as he inflict pain. To which he said:

“Pain is your friend, your ally, it will tell you when you are seriously injured, it will keep you awake and angry, and remind you to finish the job and get the hell home. But you know the best thing about pain?….It lets you know you’re not dead yet!”

But what about the pain that we feel when we lose a loved one? The pain of being heart-broken?

I continue with the Reflections of Fr. Arboleda. Here he argues that pain is part of life. It is a reminder to us of God’s presence and life without pain, isn’t life at all.

Read on…..

PAIN

Pain is one of those things that remind us always that all men are equal. The young and the old suffer pain. The rich and the poor are visited by it. The great and the humble are not spared by pain. The great can rationalize over it but the humble knows how to bear it. Indeed, there is no human being who is a stranger to pain.

There are those who suffer pain in their bodies. There are those who suffer pain in their hearts. And there are those who suffer it in their minds. Pain is one experience that shouts to our ears how human, how vulnerable and mortal, and how much in need we are of others. Pain, strangely, is one of those that mark our humanity. It is one of those things that make people ever so lovable.

I surely do not wish that anyone should suffer pain of any kind. Much less would I want to inflict it with malice on anybody. But when it comes, both as sign of our humanity and as a signal warning us of our illusions, pain has to be welcomed.

Down to brass tacks, pain is a very demanding but generous customer. When it comes, it does not leave us alone. It claims for our attention and taxes our very person. But if all the time it was there, we were patient, attentive and generous, it purifies us and makes us better persons. Any person who knows how to suffer pain emerges from the suffering purified, even-tempered and a thousand times more compassionate.

There are times and moments when we have to savor loneliness and listen to what thoughts it brings to our mind, for such thoughts usually come from our innermost selves. We sometimes reject them because they reveal the truth to us or are painful to face. Moments of loneliness can be turned to moments of solitude with ourselves and with God. We all need these moments for we cannot go on forever escaping from our own selves.

Many young men and women do not fine themselves because they hardly allow themselves a moment to be positively and creatively lonely.

It is sad that in spite of the advances of medicine, pain still belongs to our human vocabulary. What is worse is that we have built the illusion that our world must become painless.

If we are wiling to embrace life for what it is, we should be willing to welcome pain, too, for life without pain isn’t life at all. Pain is very much a part of life. And God has not taken away pain in order that we may not forget Him and the Kingdom He promised us. In fact, the greatest illusion a man can ever have is to believe that in this life, he can be perfectly happy.

Life on earth is but the beginning of life and pain is but a passage towards the fullness of life, which will come only when we are delivered of this life where we are imprisoned in matter, limited in our movements and bound in time and place.

Even as we live, we are being delivered unto life. Just as there is pain when a woman gives birth to a child, so there will be pain even as this earth delivers us unto true life. Pain is part of our deliverance. If we welcome pain we shall be delivered unto life, God’s life.